Man Gets 15 1/2 Years In Fatal Crash

Driver Said He Had Epileptic Seizure

Finally, more than a year after he plowed his pickup through a Delray Beach intersection, killing a mother of two, Mark Snyder had a chance to apologize on Thursday.

``I feel terrible remorse,'' said Snyder, 55. ``I don't blame you for what you feel.''

``Too late,'' Joseph Cassera, Regina Cassera's husband, said later.

A month after a jury rejected Snyder's defense that he was suffering an epileptic seizure at the time of the accident, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge John L. Phillips on Thursday sentenced Snyder to 15 1/2 years in prison.

``I feel justice has been served,'' Joseph Cassera said after the court hearing. ``Obviously things will never be the same for me. But it is definitely a relief.''

Snyder was en route to Deerfield Beach on May 19, 1996, when he ran a red light at Congress and Atlantic avenues, prosecutors said.

Police estimated he entered the intersection _ one of the city's busiest _ at 60 mph in a 35 mph zone. Snyder was sober.

Snyder's pickup broadsided a family van. The accident killed 37-year-old Regina Cassera and crushed her husband's pelvis, leaving him with a permanent limp. The couple's two children, Joseph Cassera Jr., now 6, and Angela, now 5, as well as Regina Cassera's sister, also were injured.

The family was headed to a steakhouse dinner.

Less than a decade ago, Snyder's fate might have been different.

In November 1990, a Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge James T. Carlisle sentenced a man to 15 years probation with no jail time, after he argued that an epileptic seizure caused him to crash into four cars west of Boca Raton and kill a New Hampshire teen visiting Florida to teach tennis.

Jess Hales also had been convicted of manslaughter by culpable negligence and culpable negligence, but Carlisle said the accident could not be attributed to criminal activity and decided against jail time.

Snyder's fate may reflect a tougher stance against vehicular manslaughter cases by the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office. Assistant State Attorney Ellen Roberts said it also shows that the jury did not believe the testimony of several doctors who concluded that Snyder had suffered a seizure that day.

At one point before the trial, Roberts offered Snyder a plea deal. In exchange for a guilty plea, he would have received house arrest and probation.

Snyder said he rejected the deal because he was innocent. Roberts said Snyder rejected the deal because he didn't want to give up his driver's license for the rest of his life.

``He rolled the dice,'' Roberts said on Thursday. ``And that's it.''

The sentence ended an emotional ordeal for two families.

Snyder's friend of 12 years, Letizia Costa, told Phillips on Thursday that before the accident, Snyder would often volunteer to remain sober and drive when he and his friends socialized.